The Quitter: And Other Tables of Employment

By Darrin Atkins

"The Quitter: and other tales of employment" is a collection of short stories on employment. Each story describes the events surrounding my experiences with different companies and the corresponding personal events in my life. If I had a job or worked for a company I didn't want to, it was because I had to if I wanted to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 9, 1999
• ISBN: 9781469102375

Darrin Atkins

Darrin Atkins was raised in Stockton, California. He graduated from the University of the Pacific in 1993 and then studied in a Ph.D. Program in Social Psychology at the University of Nevada. He has worked at Premiere magazine, Nevada magazine, the Reno Gazette-Journal, Investor’s Business Daily and The Record. “You Always Lose” is his fourth book.

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THE QUITTER:

and

other tales

of employment

Darrin Atkins

Copyright © 1999 by Darrin Atkins.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

YOU’RE A WINNER

FRAGILE

THE QUITTER

ON TV

I WANTED TO TEACH

He had wondered if the big fights and large sums he had thought would be coming but never came could be worth what he had already endured.

Leonard Gardner, Fat City

YOU’RE A WINNER

1

Never. I never thought I would become a telemarketer. I didn’t want to. I had never wished for it. I tried to avoid it. People say bad things about them because they call late at night or during dinner or because they swindle little old ladies out of their life savings. Who talks about how they want to work as a telemarketer and how it’s what they’ve always dreamed of doing? It was never something that I wanted to do and I avoided it for as long as I could.

There are some jobs that I just knew I would never accept. Not because I’m too proud but because I have standards and because I think I’m a considerate person. I thought I would never call people and bug them and bother them and interrupt their dinners because I had something to sell them. I would never go through long speeches and use psychological ploys and techniques and keep asking and begging and pestering them until I sold something to someone who never wanted it in the first place.

I’d do other things, work elsewhere, borrow money from relatives and friends, hawk every possession I had. But I would never call people all day long and go home at night after having earned my living that day by doing everything I could to make a sale and my commission. There are some occupations that people try to avoid, either because they’ve heard bad things about them or because they’ve had bad experiences with people employed as such. But sometimes it’s simply unavoidable given the necessities of life. You do what you have to do and everything else becomes secondary.

It was the autumn of one year and I was at a friend’s apartment in Reno. We were students together at the university and I had all my classes with him. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life and I was still having trouble deciding what I wanted to do. He was very bright and confident in who he was and what he was doing with his life, characteristics that I admired. His name was Andrew and he had short, jet-black hair and a chipped front tooth that had a cap that occasionally fell off, which made him look like a completely different person. He was a jovial guy, fun to be around, liked by all and admired by most. He belonged where he was and everyone knew it.

He had invited me to his apartment to get more acquainted and to talk about what research projects we were thinking about working on that semester, and what we thought of the professors we shared.

I was having a hard time with my classes and felt that I was in over my head. I was too young for the program, but Andrew wasn’t. In fact, he was four years older than me and much smarter. He was well prepared and had a firm grasp on all of the general subject areas. He was in a position that I wanted to be in but wasn’t. I knew that I had made it into the program just barely. I had doubts as to whether or not the program was right for me at that time of my life, and every day I thought about it. I had rushed into it without really finding out enough about it to see if I was well suited for it or if I was prepared enough or even if I stood a chance of passing the classes.

But there I was and I wasn’t about to give up and go back home. I was going to stick to it, if only because I didn’t have a backup plan. I didn’t know what I would do otherwise and that was something I didn’t want to think about. So I thought about how all paths seemed to lead here and here I was going to stay.

He lived in an apartment complex a few miles north of where I did, up at the edge of some hills and far from the lights and sounds of downtown Reno. I had had to drive past a steep, dusty mountain along the freeway. I glanced at it and thought nothing of it. But later something reminded me of it and I remembered an event that had happened to me when I was a kid. I had been on a ranger trip and had gone off and climbed a small mountain nearby. When I got to the top I looked down and saw that everyone was leaving so I started running down the mountain to catch up with them. I ran as fast as I could so I wouldn’t be left behind.

But then I tripped and started tumbling down the hill, out of control, bouncing on the dirt and sagebrush, going faster and faster. I was simply out of control, falling and helpless. I couldn’t stop though I desperately grasped at the weeds and branches and small trees on the ground. But the hill was too steep and too high and I just kept falling, bouncing on my head and chest, tumbling dangerously hard. I was helpless and just watched myself fall hard onto the ground and wondered if it was really me. It was like when people are involved in car accidents and it seems like they’re just watching it from afar because they are in shock and it’s the only way they can cope with the situation.

There were trees and large rocks on the way down and there was no way for me to stop myself so I just hoped that I would fall around them. After an eternity of fear and stress I finally made it to the bottom of the mountain and stopped. Quickly, I started spitting out all the dirt that had accumulated in my mouth. I was shaking and kept spitting and scraping off all the dirt that had accumulated in my ears and hair and all over me on the way down.

One of the ranger guides had seen me fall and quickly ran over to help me up. Are you all right? he asked. I was still a little dizzy and tried to calm myself by taking long, deep breaths.

Not really, I muttered, which was an understatement. I could barely hold myself and I hurt all over, especially my head and shoulders. I held the right side of my head because it hurt so much, because I had landed on that side a couple times. I shook my head to one side to knock out the rest of the dirt that was still stuck inside in my ear. I couldn’t believe I had survived because I could have easily landed on a rock or root and cracked my head.

Here’s some aspirin, he said. I took it but laughed. I could have injured myself seriously, yet I was offered just aspirin. What kind of a ranger guide was this man? Did he not see any part of my horrible fall which I had lived through? Was it as bad as I thought it was, because it seemed to last for so long and I fell hard so many times? It was difficult to know for sure. But I knew how scared I had been, how an extreme sense of helplessness had come over me, how frightened it all had been for me.

I stood inside Andrew’s apartment and looked around.

You want something to drink?

Sure, I said. He went to the kitchen and brought back two sodas.

How about a tour? He started to show me around his place and it surely seemed like a home. It wasn’t a large apartment but had plenty of space for a young couple. One room was an office and was small but functional. Inside the office there were tall bookcases full of psychology textbooks, some of which I recognized and some that I had copies of myself. There was a large wooden desk to the left against the wall, with a computer on top next to piles of research papers and journals. I looked all around the room and knew that it was all that I dreamed my office and library would look like. Andrew and his office was exactly what I wanted my life to be like, to have all the textbooks and journals that I would need right at my fingertips. To have stacks and stacks of books and reference materials so I could work on interesting, important social psychological papers and research projects.

What’s your research emphasis this year? he asked.

I’m focusing on the socialization of gender, I replied. Generally speaking, of course. I’m going to narrow it down to specific situational norms by gender and how they are grouped together and reinforced over time.

Sounds good. Lemme know if you need any help.

Definitely. If it comes along well, I’d like you to be co-author on the paper.

I’d be happy to.

Then we talked about what we found most interesting and our favorite topics, and as I talked I became more and more confident that the program was right for me and that Andrew and I would probably know each other for a long time, and work together long after the five years of the program. As I talked with him, I hoped for all this because it seemed so right and things seemed to be going so well.

My wife Nancy isn’t home yet, he said as we sat down in the living room. She just got hired as an elementary teacher recently. But it took a while because her credentials were from another state. She still has a take a couple classes here but the good thing is that she was hired. Andrew’s life seemed so perfect: the wonderful wife, the perfect office full of books, the nice apartment.

I had thought about becoming a teacher before. That was part of my problem because right before I had chosen my major as an undergraduate, I had gone to the School of Education to see about becoming a teacher. This should’ve made me realize that I had too many interests, that I wasn’t absolutely committed to one thing like Andrew was. There wasn’t just one thing that I wanted to do; there were lots of things. I liked what I was doing with Andrew with the research and the study of sociology and psychology and I grew more fascinated with it every day. But I also wanted to become a teacher. And I wanted to work in journalism. I wanted to do all kinds of things.

But graduate school was expensive and took a full, absolute commitment if you hoped to do well. It wasn’t something that could be done half-heartedly. I knew that I didn’t have that type of commitment for it. But I wanted to think that graduate school was the right place for me so I pushed the doubt that I had as far out of my head as I could, so much so that it became a denial.

It’ll be easier now with her income, said Andrew. My scholarship doesn’t provide for much outside of school so it was pretty hard when she wasn’t working.

I know how that is, I said. I don’t exactly have an abundance of money. I had to work two jobs this past summer just to have enough to support myself and pay for my books and supplies. Now I have to rely on loans. Maybe I should’ve waited a year but I heard how people who stop going to school have a hard time of starting again and I didn’t want that to happen to me.

Where did you work? he asked after a pause.

I had a full-time job at a casino downtown right under the Reno arch, and then I worked part-time at a department store in the mall. Nothing that interesting.

The casino job sounds pretty interesting.

Oh, definitely. There were all kinds of gamblers. The high-rollers and then the little old retired women with the black, soiled hands from handling quarters and nickels all day. And then how some people screamed in excitement over a tiny jackpot while others who won a ton of money at the tables hardly reacted at all. Then there were all the regular characters: the scantily-clad cocktail waitresses and the rude men who whistled at them and tried to grab them. There were the poker dealers who seemed so bored with their jobs that they could’ve cared less about the thousands of dollars that were won or lost at their tables. It was a rich, interesting environment.

I didn’t want to talk about the job anymore so I looked at the pictures on the wall over Andrew’s television. Nice wedding photo. You two make a good couple.

We get along great. She wants to have children soon but I think it’s better to wait. I’m sure you’ve heard that things can get difficult if you have kids too soon after getting married.

Right. Better to be married for a while first. What’s on all those videotapes? He explained how all those tapes were videos of every episode of a popular TV sitcom at that time and how much he liked it and planned to tape every episode and have a complete set. We talked for a while about other things, about what he thought of Reno and the things to do in the nearby cities.

I really like it around here, I said. We’re right near Lake Tahoe and I just love it there because there’s so much to do in terms of recreation. Especially Zephyr Cove and Sand Harbor. Once it gets warm again, I’m going to take one of those cruises that go from one side of the lake to the other. I spent a summer there a few years ago and it just seemed like paradise.

Something happened recently, said Andrew. My wife probably doesn’t want me telling this but I came home the other night and she was really excited about a call she had gotten. Someone had told her that she had won a trip to Hawaii.

Really? That doesn’t sound so bad. How come I don’t get those calls?

Maybe you wouldn’t want this one. It sounded too good to be true so I asked her about it. She kept saying that we had to act fast or we would lose the prize.

What was the catch?

That’s it. Neither of us could remember ever entering any such contest and we had never heard of the company, so I felt right away that it was a scam. I asked her more about it but she didn’t know too much except that we were supposed to send them a cashier’s check for six hundred dollars to secure the prize. Somehow they had convinced Nancy that it was legitimate.

That’s too bad. I thought about how awful it would be to really think you had won a trip somewhere, then to find out that it wasn’t true but after you had sent them a sizable amount of money. I would’ve liked to have gone to Hawaii myself and would’ve been tempted to send in money if I had thought I had won a trip there."

I know. I had to be the bad guy and explain that things just aren’t free, that there are scam artists out there who prey on unsuspecting people, that they’ll high-pressure you and make it sound wonderful and tell you that you have to act fast.

So you won’t have time to talk to other people about it and see if it’s a reputable company that’s making the offer, I added.

Exactly. I didn’t want to give her the bad news, especially since she was so excited about it. When they called back I told them we weren’t interested and not to call again. I tried to get the name of their company but they hung up after I started asking things.

Andrew talked more about it as I thought about it. It bothered me that there were people like that, that they’d be deceitful to my new friends. I had had experiences similar to that before when my family had received notices in the mail telling us that we were winners of something or that we had been pre-selected for something wonderful but which ended up being worthless. Or that we had to pay something up front.

I grew up every year with notices from sweepstakes companies informing us that our family was a finalist in a contest and, if we returned the winning certificate, we would be the grand prize winner of one million dollars or whatever the big prize was at the time.

I would never work for a sweepstakes company like that and I wondered how anyone could sleep at night having done so. What kind of a person would do that kind of work?

We talked about this for a while longer, partly about how one could rationalize their employment at such companies and how they handled the cognitive dissonance that the employment probably caused them, if it did at all. Then we talked about what we thought of our professors. A little later Nancy came home and Anthony introduced me to her.

Nice to meet you, I said, and it certainly was. She was prettier than her picture and had a warm, kind quality about her. Nancy had long brown hair and a nice round, attractive face. She seemed generally happy and content. I liked her immediately and was envious of Anthony. They were truly in love and I remembered when I was in love with someone and how I had felt. I hoped that I would have that feeling again.

They were a perfect pair: Anthony, the capable, competent graduate student, and Nancy, the loving elementary teacher. They had the type of relationship that I wanted, and they were obviously close based on how they embraced each other when she entered the apartment. Their situation was so nice and there was such a sense of security about it and a warmth that my life seemed rather empty in comparison. It was just so wonderful and their life was so much what I hoped mine would be like that I wished hard right then that one day I could be as happy and satisfied as they were.

I hated the caller who had tried to con Nancy, and I hated the fact that it had caused them anxiety when they had enough to worry about given their recent move and struggle to start over. It was hard enough, I thought, without lying thieves calling in the dark of night offering empty promises of a dream vacation far from the daily ritual of one’s life. I wondered what type of person would have so few morals that they would earn their living by stealing from others, robbing them of their savings and deceive them into believing that they had won something. What type of person was that? Surely it was someone who was just horrible, who didn’t care about other people, who had no conscience to speak of. How could someone live their life like that? They were telemarketers and I immediately grouped all people who did anything like that into the same class of disrespectful people.

What if Nancy hadn’t had someone like Andrew to talk with about it? How many people in the world acted without talking with someone else about it, who felt for sure that the call was from a respectable company and the prize was legitimate? It was depressing to think about. How many little old ladies or gentlemen were robbed of their savings by unscrupulous telemarketing scam artists? It disgusted me. And I was sure that what I had heard about from Andrew was just one of hundreds of types of telephone scams.

After about a half hour I excused myself . It was nice meeting you, I said to Nancy. And then to Andrew, See you in class on Monday.

I left and drove back down the empty roads seeing the bright lights of downtown Reno in the near distance. I thought about how disappointed Nancy must’ve been about not being able to go to